CD-RW/DVD-ROM Combo

[Duane Attaway]

On Tue, 23 Dec 2003, Gene Dascher wrote:

> Does anyone here have any experience using a CD-RW/DVD-ROM Combo Drive
> with Linux?  I just got one and would like to know if there are any
> pitfalls that I need to avoid.

I have a couple.  If it is a IDE or SCSI unit, it should work.  You might
have to do a lot of reasearch to find a unit that *doesn't* work with
linux!

They work very well, but I found the cd-rw discs will be mortally wounded
by just sneezing in the same room with it.  So, I only burn cdr discs and
haven't had any media failures since.

If your system has enough memory for all your running applications, you
can do heavy multi tasking and not worry about botching the recording
session.  The buffer underrun problems start happening when things start a
waiting line with the swap.

Use the ide-scsi boot parameter for the kernel, so your cd burner of
choice can use the scsi emulation.  I use cdrecord amd mkisofs, because I
find the command lines easier than mouse intensive cd creation
applications; however, most people would like the opposite of me and have
that graphical interface.

--
http://dattaway.org